Assignment 20- Growing your Social Capital

A. 1. The first person I made a connection with for this assignment is Jordan M.. He is a senior computer science major at UC Berkley. He is originally from Tampa and has worked with several startup companies to develop software and help in the making of apps to be put on the market.



2. Jordan is the domain expert in my industry since he is a technical expert in the field of creating apps and online software, he has knowledge that I don’t on the mechanical aspect of how to create this project.



3. I actually knew Jordan from high school and thought he would be a great person to contact about this project. I texted him asking if we could talk on the phone about the project and about an hour later he called me and told me a lot of what he has done to become the technical expert that he is and what he thought of my idea.



4. The nature of this exchange was friendly. Jordan gave me feedback and knows if he ever needs help from me he can call me anytime.



5. Including Jordan in my network allows me to have a contact who can assist me in the production problem and possibly know others who could help me when developing my app.



B. 1. I contacted Kristina A. to aid me with this portion of the assignment. She is a graduate student here at UF who works in the Starbucks at Library West.



2. Kristina is the market expert in my industry. She is an expert on this market because majority of the customers that she serves are students at UF who go into Library West (for Starbucks at least), this gives her insight into this market every day that she works.



3. As an avid coffee drinker I’ve become a regular at the Library West Starbucks so I simply asked Kristina if I could have her number to ask her some questions about the market.



4. The exchange was very friendly and also over the phone (just like Jordan’s was). There were no favors explicitly stated but I think from Kristina’s point of view she was upholding the Starbucks brand and by helping me she knew I would remain a loyal customer.



5. Kristina will be someone who I can contact when I have questions regarding the market and what she knows about the students who visit the library. I’m sure she would have a good estimate as to when the library experiences the busiest/emptiest times.



C. 1. For this portion of the assignment Alex W. who works with the well-known company- Apple. He is 28 and has worked with the company for several years. He is a tech associate for the company and has extensive knowledge on the supply chain of the company.



2. Alex fills the supplier contact in my industry because Apple supplies the Reitz Union bookstore with tech equipment like Apple and ipads which fall into my industry of technology so I thought Apple would be a good company to contact for this role.



3. I just called the Apple customer service line and spoke to Alex who was the first representative that I got on the phone.



4. I don’t think there is any return expectation from Alex. He was just able to tell me some information about the companies that Apple supplies for including most book stores on college campuses. He seemed the like the idea of my app!



5. Including Alex in my contacts won’t really increase my ability to exploit my opportunity per say. But it might give me some help later down the line if my app becomes a huge success.





REFLECTION



This experience has showed me not to be afraid to reach out to people and that most of the time if you approach them in a kind manner they will be more than happy to help without expecting much in return. It will help me to be more outgoing and confident when networking in the future. It differed from my other networking experiences in that it forced me to find much more specific people dealing with certain industries that I haven’t networked with before, being a pre law student. It forced me to really go out of my comfort zone and for that I am glad!